Tower, or put out their eyes with red-hot irons. But now uncles are the kindest people in the world, as every child knows. About Brian O'Lin there is more than this book "Brian O'Lin had no breeches to wear; He bought him a sheepskin to make him a pair, He is also called Tom o' the Lin, and seems to have been connected with Young Tamlane, who was carried away by the Fairy Queen, and brought back to earth by his true love. Little Jack Horner lived at a place called Mells, in Somerset, in the time of Henry VIII. The plum he got was an estate which had belonged to the priests. I find nobody else here about whom history teaches us till we come to Dr. Faustus. He was not " a very good man"; that is a mistake, or the poem was written by a friend of the Doctor's. In reality he was a wizard, and raised up Helen of Troy from the other world, the most beautiful woman who ever was seen. Dr. Faustus made an agreement with Bogie, who, after the Doctor had been gay for a long time, came and carried him off in a flash of fire. You can read about it all in several books, when you are a good deal older. Dr. Faustus was a German, and the best play about him is by a German poet. As to Tom the Piper's Son, he was probably the son of a Highlander, for they were mostly on Charley's side, who was "Over the hills and far away." Another song says "There was a wind, it came to me But though it left me bare indeed, Over all England, and thro' Wales, Tom piped this tune, and pleased both the girls and boys. About the two birds that sat on a stone, on the "All-Alone Stone," you can read in a book called (6 The Water-Babies." Concerning the Frog that lived in a well, and how he married a King's daughter and was changed into a beautiful Prince, there is a fairy tale which an industrious child ought to read. The frog in the rhyme is not nearly so lucky. Then No After these rhymes there come a number of riddles, of which the answers are given. there are charms, which people used to think would help in butter-making or would cure diseases. It is not generally thought now that they are of much use, but there can be no harm in trying. body will be burned now for saying these charms, like the poor old witches long ago. The Queen Anne mentioned on page 172 was the sister of the other Princess who married the Prince of Orange, and she was Charley's aunt. She had seventeen children, and only one lived to be as old as ten years. He was a nice boy, and had a regiment of boy-soldiers. Hickory Dickory Dock" is a rhyme for counting out a lot of children. The child on whom the last word falls has to run after the others in the game of "Tig" or "Chevy." There is another of the same kind :— "Onery Twoery Tickery Tin Alamacrack Tenamalin Pin Pan Musky Dan Tweedleum Twiddleum Twenty-one Black fish White trout Eery, Ory You are out." Most of the rhymes in this part of the book are sung in games and dances by children, and are very pretty to see and hear. They are very old, too, and in an old book of travels in England by a Danish gentleman, he gives one which he heard sung by C children when Charles II. was king. They still sing it in the North of Scotland. In this collection there are nonsense songs to sing to babies to make them fall asleep. Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, on page 207, were two young ladies in Scotland long ago. The plague came to Perth, where they lived, so they built a bower in a wood, far off the town. But their lovers came to see them in the bower, and brought the infection of the plague, and they both died. There is a little churchyard and a ruined church in Scotland, where the people who died of the plague, more than two hundred years ago, were buried, and we used to believe that if the ground was stirred, the plague would fly out again, like a yellow cloud, and kill everybody. There is a French rhyme like "Blue - Eye Beauty" "Les yeux bleus Vont aux cieux. |